Marco Rubio tours Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery as he says India–US trade deal is ‘weeks, not months’ away

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Reliance Industries’ refinery complex in Jamnagar, Gujarat, on Wednesday, October 21, a day after he said India and the United States were “incredibly close” to finalising their trade agreement. The Jamnagar stop, with energy at the top of the agenda, followed talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in Mumbai on Tuesday.

Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani, Nita Ambani and their children Isha and Anant received Rubio, The Hindu BusinessLine reported. Besides the refinery, which processes about 1.4 million barrels of crude a day and is the world’s largest single-site refining complex, he visited Reliance’s Vantara animal-rescue centre and its green-energy manufacturing complex. Officials described the programme as a “private visit” and neither side released details, India Today reported. Earlier on Wednesday, Rubio met Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani and Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran in Mumbai, PTI reported.

“Over the past year, India’s imports of U.S. LPG have surged from under 10% to 67%, making the United States India’s largest LPG supplier,” US Ambassador Sergio Gor, who accompanied Rubio, wrote on X.

Energy has been the thread running through the visit. In Mumbai on Tuesday, Rubio called India a refining “superpower” and said Indian companies could process more Venezuelan crude. “They can, and we’ll talk about that tomorrow with Reliance,” he told reporters, The Indian Express reported. Reliance is also partnering on a proposed 168,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Brownsville, Texas, which would be the first major new refinery in the US in about five decades.

On the trade deal, Rubio told The Indian Express in an interview published on Wednesday: “I think we’re incredibly close. The way I would say it is, we are weeks, not months, away from, I think, finalising it. I think 99% of the work is done.” He said the remaining differences were “language related”. He also said that US tariffs were not meant to “punish” India and that American visa restrictions were “not targeted” at the country.

After Tuesday’s meeting, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said both sides “welcomed the progress made in negotiations on the India-US Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) and reaffirmed their commitment to working towards its early conclusion”. A State Department readout said Rubio advocated more energy trade and increased purchases of US technologies and systems.

“In Mumbai, Indian External Affairs Minister @DrSJaishankar and I discussed energy security and defense cooperation while reaffirming the importance of advancing the U.S.-India strategic partnership,” Rubio wrote on X.

In Washington, President Donald Trump told reporters at the Oval Office on Tuesday: “They want to make a deal. We’re going to make a deal. Pretty close, yeah.” He said it would be “a much different kind of deal”, but did not say how.

India and the US announced a framework for the first phase of a bilateral trade agreement in February. Changes in US tariff policy since then have led to further negotiations, and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal met US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer earlier this month. No date has been announced for a final deal; Rubio said he hoped to have news to announce “fairly soon”, with signing to follow.